Perhaps more than any other modern president, Jimmy Carter identified himself very publicly and explicitly as a person guided by faith. At the same time, he was also a consistent defender of healthy boundaries between government and religion, who made clear that he would never allow his personal faith to dictate or interfere with the public interest.President Carter lived out the values he espoused, both in office and for decades afterwards. He was clear in his belief that respecting differences – including religious differences – was the way to live into his values, and these interview excerpts make that abundantly clear.
In conversations with Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, who was editor of the Huffington Post Religion section, the former president addressed challenging issues, including homosexuality. Jimmy Carter also welcomed the late Rev. Welton Gaddy to his presidential library in Atlanta in 2018, for an in-depth interview in connection with his then-new book, Faith: A Journey for All. He shared the role of prayer in his time in the White House, and his deep optimism about the resilience of America and our ability to overcome challenges.
—EPISODE TRANSCRIPT—
REV. PAUL BRANDEIS RAUSHENBUSH, HOST:
As the world comes to terms with the loss of James Earl Carter, 39th President of the United States, I remember him fondly, the times I was privileged to interview him. A fellow Baptist, Jimmy Carter was forthright about the role his evangelical faith played in his values and his politics. And that played out not just in words, but in the lifetime of public service he dedicated himself to after leaving the White House service that continued all the way into his late 90s. I remember interviewing him about his experience of the Camp David Accords. And when he was there, he set up a special place for the Muslims from Egypt and the Jews from Israel to pray in their own way in the midst of heavy, heavy negotiations for the Camp David Peace Accords, which still hold today.
He was also someone who took really seriously the separation of church and state and how it was important that even though he was a person of great faith, he decided he didn’t want to bring in his friend and evangelist Billy Graham into the White House because he didn’t want it to seem like that was a stamp of a state religion on America, believing in the right for every single person to make their own choices about religion, whether to have one, how to express it, freedom of religion, and this non-establishment of any religion in one place. Sometimes people dismissed him as like a Georgia peanut farmer, but Jimmy Carter was actually a formidable scientific mind, a nuclear physicist who was comfortable at the intersection of science and scripture. There are some who don’t want to hear anything about evolution and think that religion has to really fight back against science. How do you approach those passages in the Bible which talk about the act of creation while maintaining a positive stance towards science?
PRESIDENT CARTER:
Well, Paul, I happen to have an advantage there because I’m a nuclear physicist. You know, I’m a scientist by training and an engineer, and I’m also a deeply committed Christian. And of course, I don’t have any doubt in my own mind that there was a superior being, whom we call God, who created the entire universe. And the United States now, with its most advanced scientific techniques, exploring space and exploring subatomic particles and things of that kind, we’re learning new facts every day. that the Creator has known, of course, since the very beginning of time. I don’t adhere to the Old Testament statements that so-and-so was created 4,000 or 4 years before Christ and things of that kind. I think that the modern times have shown it. and the stars and so forth were created many, many years before that, even billions of years before. So as far as the time schedule is concerned, we have to remember that the human beings who wrote this script had a limited knowledge of astronomy and so forth. But as far as the creation is concerned and the principles that are expressed in the Bible that apply to our everyday lives, I don’t have any problem in believing them.
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
Some would say that the Bible is oppressive to women, and certainly within the Baptist denomination that you were a part of, the move to strip women of the ability to be ordained as ministers in the Southern Baptist Convention. What would you say to those who would point to certain scriptures that women should not teach men or speak in church? What is the way that you resolve that?
PRESIDENT CARTER:
Well, you know, I separated from the Southern Baptist Convention when they adopted this discriminatory attitude toward women. Because I believe in what Paul taught the Galatians, for instance, when he said there is no distinction in God’s eyes between men and women, between slaves and masters, between Jews and non-Jews. That everybody is created equal in the eyes of God. So when the Southern Baptists decide to depart from their ancient beliefs, and prevent women from either teaching men in seminaries and from serving as chaplains or missionaries or pastors or deacons and so forth. That’s when I decided I would rather go with a more moderate version of my Baptist faith. And so I don’t have any problem in what I’ve decided. I don’t criticize the ones who disagree with my interpretation.
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
It was thanks to Jimmy Carter that I ended up improbably listed on Snopes.com, the fact-checking website. In a 2012 interview, I asked the former president what many consider a provocative question on LGBT persons. The lifelong Baptist’s answer made widespread headlines and was surprising enough that it ended up being fact-checked. Here’s that original exchange. a lot of people point to the Bible for the reason why gay people should not be in the church or not be acknowledged as a category. Is that a similar approach for the passages of those?
PRESIDENT CARTER:
Yes, because homosexuality was well known in the ancient world long before Christ was born. And Jesus never said a word about homosexuality in all of his teachings, about multiple things. He never said anything about gay people or should be condemned.
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
And here are a few more minutes from my time with Jimmy Carter, who is universally recognized as one of two American presidents to never send U.S. troops into a new military conflict.
PRESIDENT CARTER:
I tried to apply my religious beliefs when I was in the governor’s office and as a state senator and president without being ostentatious about it. One of the things that I emphasized mostly when I was president was to maintain peace. We worshipped the Prince of Peace, and I was determined when I went into office that unlike my predecessors, and it turned out all my successors, I would try to keep our country out of war, and I was able to to avoid dropping bombs and launching missiles and firing bullets while I was in the White House. And I did that posthumously because I had served for twelve years, eleven years, in the Navy before I became President.
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
Jesus says, I am the only way, the way, the truth, and the life. Wrestling with that in the light of the real need for pluralism, how can you remain true to a kind of exclusivist faith claim while respecting other faith traditions?
PRESIDENT CARTER:
Well, quite often in my Sunday School classes, in particular the last two or three Sundays since I got back from Egypt, meeting with the Muslim Brotherhood and all, and having known Anwar Sadat very deeply, who was a devout Muslim, and who pointed out to me that the Muslims revere Christ. I’m hesitant to condemn other people. I believe that Jesus also taught much more than he did what you just pointed out. that we should not judge other people, that it should be God who judged people. So I’m willing to let God make those judgments in the ultimate time, whenever it might come, or in current events as well. So I think, judge not that ye be not judged, is the best advice that I’ll follow, and maybe it’s a rationalization, but it creates an absence of tension in my mind about that potential conflict. There are many verses in the Bible that you could interpret very rigidly, and that makes you ultimately into a fundamentalist where you think you’re better than anybody else, that you’re closer to God than other people, and therefore they’re inferior to you, and sometimes even they’re subhuman people. I think that leads to conflict, to hatred, to dissonance among people, and we should be working for peace.
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
In 2018, Jimmy Carter published one of his many well-received books. The title was Faith: A Journey for All. The late Rev. Welton Gaddy, who hosted this show with such dedication for so many years, traveled to the Carter Library in Atlanta Georgia, to record an in-depth conversation – one former Southern Baptist to another. Here are some highlights.
WELTON GADDY:
When you were in the White House, was there one moment, or maybe more moments I could imagine, when you were aware more than ever of the importance of faith and your critical need for faith at that time?
PRESIDENT CARTER:
I prayed more in that four years that I was in the White House than I did any other period of my life. You know, I was really taken aback and shocked and overwhelmed with a need for prayer. When I first was elected, before I was inaugurated president, I got a briefing from the military leaders and they told me about the ravages of nuclear warfare. I had under my control, I won’t say exactly how many, it’s still confidential, but more than 15,000 nuclear weapons. And Brezhnev, the president of the Soviet Union then, had the same. And I was reminded that if we did start a nuclear war, which applies to every president since then, that we could wipe out every living thing on earth. So I was aware that I had under my control the ability potentially of destroying human life. And every person since then has shared that responsibility. And so I have prayed during my time and I have prayed for other presidents as well to refrain from that catastrophic decision.
WELTON GADDY:
What is the relationship between faith and values?
PRESIDENT CARTER:
We have to accommodate the times that change and welcome change, as a matter of fact. But at the same time, despite those changes that we have to accommodate, we need to cling to principles that never do change. Our belief in God, our belief in Jesus Christ, our belief in the truth. I would say that one of the most difficult that our country has faced over a period of a couple of generations has been a faith in the equality of people in the eyes of God. And that equality struggle has been a very difficult thing for us in the past, with the Civil War and so forth, and we’re struggling with it still. And not only in this country, but in other countries as well. So just to realize that we have a responsibility on our own selves of treating other people as equals in the eyes of God, And someday, I think, in order to avoid destruction from nuclear weapons or other possible sources, we are going to have to learn how to accommodate our differences with our enemies and learn how to care for one another, as Jesus taught. We welcome his advice to love not only our neighbors and our friends, people who are lovable, who love us back, but also love our enemies and love everyone. So I think that that is a transition that the human race has never yet made. We try to keep those truisms alive, but it’s very difficult to put into practice and to keep it in practice, particularly when you get to the political realm.
WELTON GADDY:
We’re at a really difficult time, as you know. We are. I’m thinking of the word faith and the fact that I meet a lot of people who have lost faith in our government and who are fighting about losing faith with the nation. For our listeners who are very interested, what would you say to them about how to get through this difficult time?
PRESIDENT CARTER:
I would say that I still have faith in America to overcome that difficulty. You know how in past history we had faith in letting women have a right to vote, at least white women, and then later all women. We’ve had faith in doing away with slavery. We’ve had faith enough, at least legally, to do away with discrimination against African-Americans and others. We still have a long way to go with those. But I think that America has it. principles embedded in our Constitution, which is almost inviolate. Very slight interpretations by the Supreme Court. But I think we have that resilience. And we have a makeup of our population in its diversity or heterogeneity that is reassuring to me. Because we inherit genes from our ancestors, almost every one of whom came here on an uncertain future, kind of like Abraham did when he went to the promised land. You know, and I think that entrepreneurial spirit, our willingness to look at new things and to try new ideas, and to resolve difficulties with your own involvement, is what has made America strong so far. And I believe that the problems that we face today A lot of people think they all happened since 2016, but they happened long before that. The great disparity in income happened long before the last election. And I would say that the mistreatment of poor people happened long before this. So a lot of our problems are long running. And I still have faith in America and in the integrity of our constitutional principles and the resilience of our people to overcome any challenge that we see now or that might arise in the future.
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
I’m so grateful to Jimmy Carter, to his legacy, to all that he offers us today. As we approach the presidency of Donald Trump, which is almost the antithesis, and we remember someone who stood by strong values, who understood what religion can be, and chose not to wield it as a sword, but to put it forth as a bridge towards understanding. You know, we’re going into a difficult time right now. I think the presidency of Donald Trump is going to be very harmful to many, many communities and will be harmful to the idea of a pluralistic, multiracial, multireligious America. But I think we can hold firm to the ideals personified, exemplified by President Jimmy Carter and give thanks today for his legacy and all that he has meant to so many of us. And I hope you will be feeling that in your heart and offer whatever prayer or thoughts for Jimmy Carter in these days when we remember his legacy across the country.
